The background of the present invention includes U.S. Pat. No. 5,925,103, Internet Access Device, which describes an improved Internet access system, vastly different from the present invention. Other prior art would include palm top computers, hand-held computers and cellular telephones that have limited processing power due to design restrictions. Thus, these computers are much slower for accessing the Internet and World Wide Web.
The present invention enhances the server""s processing speed, data transfer and retrieval to and from the portable devices, with the aid of specialized embedded software in the server. The result is a cost effective Internet access solution.
It is an object of the present invention to disclose a portable device, similar to a combination of a cellular telephone and palm top computer, that can access the Internet and World Wide Web, at extremely low costs. It is another object of the present invention to provide fast access to the Internet such that refreshing pages is quick and efficient.
The principal embodiment of the present invention discloses a portable device that comprises a modem that connects to a cellular telephone. Thus, the device has a wireless connection to the Internet. A host computer, which may also be a Web server connects directly to the Internet. The host computer comprises multiple software programs, for example a Browser Translator, which translates HTML images into black and white bit map or raster images. The compressed bit map or raster images are sent to the portable device, and the device decompresses the images. Thus, the user views a bit map image of a Web page.
The portable device comprises methods for pointing and clicking on text and images representing links to other Web pages. Clicking events are sent to the host computer that performs the commands via a virtual browser. The host computer then sends the required information to the portable device as a compressed image. The portable device decompresses the image and the user views a new page.
In a further embodiment, the server may also send a message to the device containing information pertaining to locations of links. Icons, graphics, or text that are already in bold, and which represent links to other Web sites must be conveyed to the user but it is difficult to represent such items in bold on the device. Thus, the server may transmit a message to the device containing the specification of all the areas that would constitute a link on the page so that the palm top device would know where a link exists. Therefore, when a user passes the cursor over that area the cursor changes from an arrow to a hand. The user recognizes that the icon is a link and may therefore click upon it.
In another embodiment, the process of capturing the raster image, reducing it to black and white, sending it to the device and displaying it on the screen of the device, is done over the standard wireless mark up language or WAP protocols.